i'm suspecting that bass and perhaps more chose to have this be the result of fires;

Almost a year after January’s devastating California wildfires, real estate investors have been buying up nearly 40 percent of the land sold in the areas impacted by the fires.

A Dec. 30 report from Redfin stated that many of these now-empty lots once retained some of the nation’s most expensive homes, before they were reduced to rubble when the fire ripped through over 40,000 acres and destroyed more than 11,000 single-family homes in the Los Angeles suburbs.

A Zillow analysis—also released on Dec. 30—indicates the total residential housing value of the 19,605 homes in the affected regions was $46 billion prior to the fires.

More than 11,000 of those homes were destroyed.

The median home value in Los Angeles suburbs was listed at $1.95 million as of December 2024, prior to the fires.

Zillow’s report shows that for-sale housing supply near the fire zones escalated soon after the fires ended. In addition, new listings within five miles of the fire regions continued to grow from December 2024 to January 2025............more............